Open letter to City of Fort Pierce Commission and Staff

Do not increase taxes, before you make meaningful cuts in your spending by acting on the City of Fort Pierce’s Citizens Budget Advisory Committee recommendations that will reduce the city's costs immediately and in the future:

Reduce legal costs by $250,000; Reduce health care costs; Eliminate the annual sick leave conversion bonus; Establish sickleave payout upon retirement to 620 hours (6 weeks); Establish the retirement multiplier to 2.5 for all city hall employees (except police); Cap pensions to75% of base pay, and eliminate vacation, sick and overtime amounts (exceptstate-mandated overtime inclusion); Increase the retirement age and the number of years of service required; Increase the vesting period to ten years. Reduce Commission pay and review car allowances, technology, and travel for Commissioners and employees to make sure they’re justified.

Your debt repayment goes up to $5.2million in 2014. Most of this debt is due to the 2007 Sunshine Loan that you were warned the City could not pay back; you then shifted the responsibility to the FPRA, which is now unable to pay it either. This debt payment exists because of expensive property purchases and building a city parking garage. The staff and the commission must now assume responsibility for their speculative behavior by coming up with money that does not come from the taxpayer or the ratepayer to pay your debt.